Monday, February 20, 2012

Its a Sunny Day in February....

It was a sunny day in February, what to do, on an afternoon, that would hit 40 degrees, but felt warmer, because of no wind.  It had been a sunny weekend, but cold.  President's Day, no mail, no banks open.  Frozen ground that kept the mud down and allowed the accumulated snow from Friday go down slowly.  Ice crystals in the air at sunrise, made a misty fog shrouding the close ground.  But the sun burned it off by the time I walked out of the PMR center where I worked out for a couple of hours.  

Lots of things to do but today was one of those days where I couldn't wrap my head around any of them.  I didn't want to dig through papers to be sorted, or clean off furniture to be put up for sale.   I didn't want to vacuum the mounds of dog hair that seem to accumulate as if by magic everywhere, and doing research on the internet, didn't hold much attraction today, though there is much to research.  It was just one of those days.  Feeling restless and not wanting to let worry overtake me again, what to do.....

For me, it was not even a question, if the weather is good, I head out of doors.  My first intention was to let the dogs out and just toss a tennis ball for them.   That was my first intention.  But that gets old pretty quickly for me, though Gauge never seems to tire of running after that ball, taking it away from Tally if she gets there first, and bringing the ball right back and dropping it at my feet.  He is very much like Odie of Garfield fame, "do it again, and again, and again"....So, I looked around to see what I could do in a still winter yard that was at least somewhat productive and would keep me in the sunshine.  Yup, prune an apple tree.  We have four semi dwarf MacIntosh apple trees in our back yard.  They have been here for over 20 years.   For the most part we just let them go and if they produced apples, great, and if more often was the case, they didn't, that was all right, too.   Four years ago after urging from our son, to really prune the trees as apple growers do, we took a chain saw, pruning saw, loppers of various sizes and even some hand pruners to whittle down our over grown trees.  Every spring  since we have taken more tall, upright branches out of the center, along with the water sprouts, upright growing straight twigs, with no branching, capabilities.  These most often grow from pruned large branches, and can grow four feet or more in one season.  Spring is always the time to prune these back. 

We put up a four foot fence 3 years ago, and it bisected the trees.  Now, one tree along with a cherry tree remain inside the fence, and the other three are on the outside of the fence, bordering it.  My first thought was to just trim off some of the water sprouts, while tossing the tennis ball.  The pile of lopped off twigs grew around the tree trunk.  The dogs chased the tennis ball and an hour flew by.  When I made the decision to get the small stepladder out, I knew it was becoming less something to do, than something I had to do.  Another half hour and some bigger branches were lopped off, and I determined the 10 foot ladder had to come out.  Along with carrying out that heavier ladder, I also brought the pruning saw, which meant I was serious about cutting off some bigger branches.  Another hour and several two inch branches later, I had made a serious dent on really doing some pro pruning.  I decided not to waste a good, sunny day in February and another hour later, I had quite a pile of branches and twigs, but I also had an apple tree trimmed as it always should be.  I took a day that wasn't quite right, despite the sunshine and unlikely mild winter temperatures, and let my earth woman, God given love for the land, take over and pruned a tree.  It felt good, and now I only have three more to do....

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